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‘I do,’ Dougie insisted.
They had almost reached Eaton Square and as Dougie waited to turn into it he looked again at Emerald, who had gone very quiet, only to realise that she had passed out and was fast asleep. A gentle snore shook her body as he drove into the square.
Emerald, illegitimate. She would hate him even more than she already did when she sobered up and remembered what she had told him. And if he’d been Alessandro there was no way he would have allowed anyone to blackmail Emerald into agreeing to have their marriage annulled.
They were stopping outside Lenchester House, and Emerald was still out for the count. Dougie got out and went round to the passenger door, somehow managing to get her out. Holding her in his arms, he mounted the steps to the house.
When the butler opened the door, Dougie informed him firmly, ‘Her Highness has hurt her ankle, Chivers, and I’m afraid the pain has caused her to faint. I’ll take her straight up to her room.’
‘Do you wish me to summon a doctor, Your Grace?’
‘Not at the moment, Chivers, thank you. I think it is more the shock of the pain than any injury.’
Despite Emerald’s fragility, Dougie was puffing by the time he had reached her room.
Placing Emerald on the bed, Dougie then turned to leave, hesitating by the door only to go back and wrench the covers from under her body to drape them over her, whilst determinedly not looking at her lying prone.
No sense in letting her get cold, after all.
* * *
It was late morning when Emerald woke up with a pounding head and a feeling of acute nausea in her stomach. Slowly, like mere wisps of mist at first, barely there and easily ignored but steadily growing thicker and stronger, memories of the previous evening started to seep into her head.
Tod Newton, flirting so charmingly with her; her determination to prove to everyone that she was so sensual that she could make any man desire her…Tod had suggested they went on somewhere more intimate to dance away the rest of the night. She had agreed, she remembered, but then…
An image, a familiar face and an equally familiar voice slid into her thoughts. Dougie?
Like a high tide surge suddenly everything came back to her. What she had said, what she had told him, what she had asked.
Oh God, no! No! Not that, and to Dougie the Drover, whom she so despised. Emerald ground her teeth in fury and then had to stop because of the pain knifing into her head.
She had to see him and she had to make sure that he must never, ever breathe a word to anyone about last night…
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘Is the duke here, Chivers?’
Emerald had made a brave attempt at appearing groomed, but not even the aspirin she had sent her maid to get from the housekeeper, and copious cups of coffee, had been able to lift the headache that had settled round her forehead like a tight band.
‘He said to tell you that he’d be in the library if you were to ask for him, Lady Emerald.’
It was only when Emerald had turned away from him that she realised that Chivers had returned to using her pre-marriage title. Her heart began to thump in time to the pain in her head. Dougie must have said something to him. It was impossible, surely, for the servants to know already otherwise. God, how the drover must be enjoying this. Why had she been such a fool and told him what she had?
She pushed open the double doors to the library. Times were changing and even in the grandest houses now the footmen who would once have sprung to attention to open the door for high-ranking members of the family and visitors were rarely seen. Unless, of course, one was royal. Alessandro had told her once how much he enjoyed the relaxed way of life in London in comparison to the strict formality upon which his mother insisted for their own court.
Alessandro…Unwanted angry tears burned the backs of her eyes. Blinking them away, she stepped into the room.
Dougie was waiting for her, she could tell. He might be pretending to read the papers but Emerald wasn’t deceived. She could almost feel his tension. That was enough to give her back something of her spirit.
Ignoring her headache, she told him coldly, ‘No doubt Tod Newton will be making enquiries today as to how and why I was practically abducted last night, and when he does call—’
‘When he did call earlier this morning, he was reminded that you are a married woman, and a member of the family of which I am the head. And whose name I shall not allow to be slurred.’
If her head hadn’t been aching so much she would have laughed out loud at the very idea of the drover proclaiming himself head of the family. A family that, in effect, she no longer belonged to. Her true family name was not one of proud longevity adorned with strawberry leaves and a ducal crest.
‘You had no right—’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Emerald, let’s not carry on like this. Given what you told me last night, I’d have thought you’d have far more important things demanding your attention than some damned ladies’ man.’
